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81 of 84 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sony quality for generic price., June 11, 2008
This review is from: Sony Bravia L-Series KDL-32L4000 32-Inch 720p LCD HDTV (Electronics)
This is my first venture in the HDTV era. I patiently waited for years waiting for price drops. LCD HDTV's have finally become affordable and something rare... Sony has come out with an affortable decent size HDTV. This tv is sharp both aesthetically and the picture. I never saw this tv in person so I had no idea the bottom was clear plastic. It looks like solid silver in the pictures but it is clear in fact. It makes it look that much better. The sound is not great but HDTV's are meant to be paired with entertainment speakers. There are two HDMI slots and tons of component slots. The TV is solid in short. I paired the TV with a sony upconverter (Which I will review as well), and that did wonders to my DVD collection. The picture was not near HD quality but it was without a doubt better than ever before. It did improve the picture and the colors are vivid and bright. I have standard expanded cable service and plugged the cable in before turning on the tv for the first time. When I turned on the tv it automatically searched for chanels and to my astonishment, found 30 digital channels and all local chanels in HD! Straight out of the cable! No box necessary! This made me think cable companies are ripping people off renting out HD boxes. My cable company (Cox) has told me and advertised the HD channels can only be accessed through their special HD box. This is true if you want MTV and 12 other cable channels in HD but not local channels. Needless to say, It was a very pleasant surprise as I don't have to pay 17 bucks a month extra to see HD content.
The second HDMI cable was used by my PS3. I don't need to say anything else but I'm in heaven. Here is the best part, this tv is one of the cheapest on the market and it's a Sony! Morevoer, the shipping was free and no taxes! I checked the best buy website and found I would be paying 70 bucks more at my local store! Highly recommended.
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34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The choice was easy for me..., August 9, 2008
This review is from: Sony Bravia L-Series KDL-32L4000 32-Inch 720p LCD HDTV (Electronics)
WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR: Cheap-ish 32" widescreen with a flat-black cabinet for my bedroom. I already have a 32" Viewsonic in the other room. Although that was about $150 less, it shows. I wanted something one notch up. Plus, my experience with reliability and service was a nightmare with the Viewsonic.
WHAT I GOT: Let me start by saying I can't understand for the life of me why 90% of TVs today have glossy black cabinets. Isn't the last thing you want near or on your TV something shiny or reflective? Stupid fashion statement. Maybe it's just me, but I'm more busy looking at what's inside of the rectangle- not outside of it. So this pretty much narrowed it down to this TV alone. Amazon had a killer deal on the Samsung LN32A450 when I bought the Sony, and wherever you look it says the Samsung has a better picture. And when I saw the two at a store I would have to agree- just by a bit. But that shiny glossy cabinet was the deal breaker for me. Again- I just don't get it. The Sony is all I want it to be- and a little bit more. Very good picture, a cabinet that doesn't shout for attention, decent menus, logical input menu, etc. The channel switching is a tad slower than past Sony's I've owned, but still not nearly as slow as various Philips, Magnavoxs, Viewsonics, etc. that I've used. The unexpected bonus was after connecting it to my standard (not digital) Comcast cable, I noticed that I can pick up local HD channels. This is something I was not able to do with my Viewsonic. Perfect for the Olympics!!! Not ready for a bigger cable bill, my intention for this TV was just to watch DVDs in WS and the rest in 4:3. This was a nice surprise!
The bottom line is I doubt you will find a better TV all-around for this kind of money. Unless you're a hard core videophile who spends a lot of time with calibration discs and watching reference material looking for shadows and artifacts, you will not be disappointed with this set. And if you are, go ahead and spend 50% more you lucky guy/gal! And if you're considering lesser brand names to save $100 or so, I would say save up a bit and move one step up. You'll probably own the TV for another 6-8 years so think how little that is per year.
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great display and ATSC tuner; good sound, July 17, 2008
This review is from: Sony Bravia L-Series KDL-32L4000 32-Inch 720p LCD HDTV (Electronics)
I recently purchased this item from another vendor.
Picture quality is very good to my eyes. The blacks are black, not washed out as on, say, a Westinghouse lvm37-w3. Sound from the built-in speakers is good, but nothing to compare with external amplified speakers. The built-in ATSC tuner does a great job.
Setting up the channel list was easy and took only a couple of minutes, but I do wish there were an obvious way to skip analog channels during setup. I don't have cable and didn't want to include any analog channels in the channel list. Since they were automatically identified, I had to manually hide them once channel setup was complete.
Of course, it will be easy to skip analog over-the-air channels after February 2009 :)
I wanted to set up a laptop with a TV tuner, for use as a DVR. It was easy to connect to the Sony. I'm using a MacBook, so for the video connection I used a Mini-DVI to DVI adapter connected to a DVI-D to HDMI cable. For audio I used a 3.5mm male to 2 RCA-type male audio y-cable. With the cables connected and the TV turned on, the MacBook recognized the display and automatically configured it to 1280x720 resolution, without so much as popping up a preference pane.
The owner's manual warns not to connect a PC to the HDMI ports, and to use the RGB IN port instead; I'm not sure why, or whether this is specific to PCs with VGA video-out ports. Given the MacBook's Mini-DVI video port, I guessed the warning didn't apply to it.
Pros:
* Very good picture quality
* Good ATSC tuner
* Plays well with computers
Cons:
* No obvious way to skip analog over-the-air channels during channel setup
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